Bills try to avoid first 3-game skid with Allen as starter and face Jets led by interim Ulbrich

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Bills try to avoid first 3-game skid with Allen as starter and face Jets led by interim Ulbrich

2024-10-13 04:36 Last Updated At：04:40

Buffalo (3-2) at New York Jets (2-3)

Monday, 8:15 p.m. EDT, ESPN.

BetMGM NFL odds: Bills by 2 1/2.

Series record: Bills lead 69-58.

Against the spread: Bills 2-3, Jets 2-3.

Last meeting: Bills beat Jets 32-6 on Nov. 19, 2023, in Buffalo.

Last week: Bills lost to Texans 23-23; Jets lost to Vikings 23-17.

Bills offense: overall (22), rush (14), pass (24t), scoring (3).

Bills defense: overall (20), rush (26), pass (14), scoring (12t).

Jets offense: overall (27), rush (32), pass (19), scoring (25).

Jets defense: overall (2), rush (14), pass (2), scoring (5t).

Turnover differential: Bills plus-7; Jets even.

WR Khalil Shakir. If he returns after missing last week with a right ankle injury, the third-year receiver could help settle the Bills' passing attack. Shakir has been Josh Allen’s most reliable option, having caught 18 of 19 passes thrown in his direction with a team-leading 230 yards receiving and two touchdowns. If he doesn’t return, the question remains which of Buffalo’s other receivers can step up after the position group combined for four catches on 18 targets last week.

QB Aaron Rodgers. The 40-year-old quarterback fully practiced Saturday after dealing with a sprained left ankle and sore hamstring a week after having a sore left knee. A lot of the Jets' success on offense is tied to how healthy and effective Rodgers can be. The past two weeks, he has been sacked eight times and hit 25 times, so the offensive line needs to help keep Rodgers upright. He'll face the Bills for the first time since tearing his left Achilles tendon four snaps into the season opener last year, also in a “Monday Night Football” game.

Allen vs. Jets' passing defense. Allen hasn’t thrown an interception this season, a career-best run, but the Bills have also been in a bit of a rut with their passing game. Their 42 passing first downs through five games are their fewest since having 33 in 2018. And opponents have outscored Buffalo 38-6 in the first half. Now the Bills face a Jets defense that has been stingy against the pass, ranking second in the NFL.

Bills DT Ed Oliver was ruled out for the second straight game with a hamstring injury. ... Shakir was listed as questionable. ... RB James Cook (foot/toe) was also questionable, as was CB Taron Johnson (right forearm), who could return after missing four games. ... WR Curtis Samuel (foot/toe) was limited Thursday and Friday, but fully practiced Saturday. ... Starting S Taylor Rapp was cleared from concussion protocol after missing one game. ... Jets CB Michael Carter II has a back ailment that will keep him out for the game. ... DL Leki Fotu fully practiced and could be activated from injured reserve after starting the season sidelined with a hamstring injury. ... RT Morgan Moses (knee) has missed two games in a row and LB C.J. Mosley (toe) three straight, but both could return this week. ... TE Tyler Conklin is questionable with a hip ailment.

The teams have split the past two season series, with each winning at home during that span. ... Buffalo is 15-8 in the past 23 meetings since snapping a six-game skid spanning the 2009-12 seasons.

The Jets could move into a tie with the Bills for first place in the AFC East with a victory. ... The Bills have never lost three straight with Allen as their starter. The previous time they dropped three in a row was a four-game skid in 2018, which coincided with Allen missing three of those games with an injury to his throwing elbow. The losing streak ended with Matt Barkley starting and beating the Jets 41-10. ... Buffalo is 18-6 following a loss since the start of the 2019 season. ... Allen hasn’t thrown an interception this season, a career-best run, after being picked off a career-high 18 times last year. His two lost fumbles account for both of Buffalo’s giveaways this year. ... Allen is set to play in his 100th game. His 231 touchdowns (passing, rushing and receiving) are tied with Patrick Mahomes for the most by a player in his first seven seasons. ... Cook is Buffalo’s first player topping 300 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving through the team’s first five games since Fred Jackson in 2013. ... Against Houston, the Bills dropped to 14-3 when topping 100 yards rushing since the start of 2023. ... Buffalo has been held under 300 yards three times (including a win over Miami), matching the number of times that has happened since the start of the 2022 season. ... Buffalo’s 42 passing first downs through five games are the fewest since having 33 in 2018. ... The Jets will play their first game with Jeff Ulbrich serving as the interim head coach after Robert Saleh was fired Tuesday. Ulbrich, who played linebacker for 10 seasons with San Francisco, has been New York's defensive coordinator since 2021. ... Ulbrich replaced offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett with passing game coordinator Todd Downing as the play caller on offense. ... Rodgers is coming off his worst game with the Jets after he tied a career worst with three interceptions, including one for a pick-6 in the first quarter and another on New York's final drive to seal the loss in London. ... Rodgers became the ninth player in NFL history to throw for 60,000 yards in regular-season games. He now has 60,148. Rodgers also passed Dan Marino for seventh on the NFL’s list for total yards passing in both regular-season and playoff games. ... New York's running game ranks last in the NFL and RB Breece Hall is averaging just 3 yards per carry, far off his career average of 4.5. ... After a slow start to the season, WR Garrett Wilson caught a career-high 13 passes for a season-high 101 yards on a personal-best 22 targets last week. No Jets player has had 10 or more receptions in consecutive games since Keyshawn Johnson in 1999. ... Edge rusher Will McDonald is tied for second in the NFL with a career-high six sacks to go along with 22 quarterback pressures. He has at least four pressures in four straight games. ... The Jets have held four opponents to 300 yards or fewer this season, tied with Miami for the most in the NFL. ... New York had six penalties on defense last week, including three on CB Sauce Gardner and two on CB D.J. Reed. ... The Jets have recovered a fumble on defense in four straight games, their longest such streak since doing so four consecutive games between Week 17 in 2014 and Week 3 in 2015.

Wilson’s big performance last week in London marked his re-emergence as a WR1 after he and Rodgers were slow to build an on-field rapport. Wilson, who has 211 receptions in just 39 games, remains a must-start in fantasy lineups despite the inconsistent start by Rodgers and the offense.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Middle East latest: Palestinian officials say 22 killed in Israeli airstrikes

2024-10-13 16:04 Last Updated At：16:10

The Israeli military on Saturday renewed its orders for Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and shelters as troops continue a weeklong offensive against militants.

Most of the fighting has centered in and around Jabaliya, which has been pounded by Israeli war jets and artillery. Residents said they have been trapped inside their homes and shelters.

Israel also has been escalating its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border after a year of exchanges of fire. Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hamas' ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

It's been a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Here is the latest:

Israeli airstrikes on Saturday hit multiple areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, killing more than a dozen people and causing damage to hospitals, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, as fighting with the Hezbollah militant group continued.

Nine people were killed in Maisra village in the northeast, with 15 wounded, the ministry said. Four people were killed and 18 wounded in an apartment building on the edge of Barja south of Beirut.

The ministry said Rayak and Tal Chiha hospitals in the Bekaa Valley were damaged, while seven people were wounded in strikes on Brital and Temnine in Baalbek-Hermel province. In Nabatieh, eight people were wounded.

Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have previously faced heavy bombardment, have not been struck in the past 48 hours. Hezbollah functions as a state within a state there.

The total toll in Lebanon over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is now 2,255 killed and over 10,000 wounded, according to the ministry. More than 1,400 people have been killed since mid-September. It isn’t clear how many were fighters.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is considering sending one of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems to Israel, U.S. officials said Saturday. A defense official said no final decision has been made.

A U.S. official said there were ongoing discussions late last week about deploying a THAAD to Israel. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The U.S. has a wide range of missile defense systems arrayed across the Middle East and Europe, including Patriot systems. Officials have been discussing for months what types of air defense systems to deploy to the region and where to put them. Any move of a THAAD to Israel would involve the deployment of soldiers to operate the complex system.

A year ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the deployment of a THAAD battery and additional Patriot battalions to locations around the Middle East to increase protection of U.S. forces and to aid in the defense of Israel. According to an April report by the Congressional Research Service, the Army has seven THAAD batteries. Generally each consists of six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors, radio and radar equipment and it requires 95 soldiers to operate.

The THAAD is considered a complimentary system to the Patriot, but it can defend a wider area. It can hit targets at ranges of 150-200 kilometers (93-124 miles).

— Lolita Baldor

NEW YORK — The Israeli army has eased restrictions in parts of the country’s north even as it continued to trade fire with Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The changes allow for schools to reopen in parts of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and parts of the Western Galilee if they have quickly accessible shelters. Some restrictions on gatherings were eased as well.

In other parts of the north, educational activity is still prohibited.

The announcement comes despite a barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel Friday night and Saturday, celebrated in Israel as Yom Kippur, or the Jewish Day of Atonement. The military says some of the approximately 320 projectiles were intercepted, and no injuries have been reported.

The military also says it has struck 280 military targets in Lebanon and Gaza over the weekend, and that it killed 50 Hezbollah militants. It has provided no evidence for the latter claim.

Separately, Hezbollah says it launched an attack with explosive drones on the suburbs of Tel Aviv on Friday night. One drone directly hit a nursing home in Herzliya, a city north of Tel Aviv, Israeli media said. No casualties have been reported.

CAIRO — Israeli airstrikes flattened a residential area and killed at least 22 people including women and children in an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday.

In an area where Israel’s military launched a major ground operation last week, one of the strikes late Friday destroyed an entire building, killing at least 20 people and severely damaging several nearby buildings in the center of Jabaliya camp, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.

A different strike killed a mother, father and injured their baby in another part of Jabaliya, medical officials said.

First responders who rushed to the area before the strikes had ceased found a 20-meter (65-foot) deep hole within a house in the area.

At least 20 bodies had been recovered from the area as of Saturday morning, with many others said to be missing under the rubble, emergency service officials said, adding that at least six women and seven children were killed.

Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday said hospitals across Gaza received the bodies of 49 people killed over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 219 wounded. The deaths brought the death tally to 42,175 since the war began on Oct. 7 last year, with 98,339 wounded, according to the ministry.

Israeli military officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The strikes late Friday are part of Israel’s latest broadening offensive in northern Gaza.

The U.S. military said it conducted a series of airstrikes against multiple camps in Syria belonging to the Islamic State group.

The U.S. Central Command said the strikes on Friday will “disrupt the ability of ISIS to plan, organize and conduct attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, and civilians throughout the region and beyond.”

It said battle damage assessments were underway and did not include civilian casualties.

There are some 900 U.S. forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory.

BEIRUT — The speaker of Iran’s parliament on Saturday toured the scene of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut that killed and wounded dozens, vowing that Tehran would keep supporting Lebanese and Palestinians in fighting against Israel.

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf visited the bombed area after holding talks with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who said that Lebanon’s priority now was working toward a cease-fire.

His office said that Lebanon’s government still abides by a 2006 U.N. Security Council Resolution approved at the end of a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah and was prepared to boost Lebanese army presence along the country’s border with Israel.

“We will keep standing with the Lebanese people during these difficult circumstances and also with the Palestinian people,” Qalibaf said during the tour, during which he was escorted by several Hezbollah officials.

Qalibaf added that Iran will aid the Lebanese people and “we hope that they will be victorious.”

It was the second recent visit by an Iranian official to Beirut after the foreign minister visited rarlier this month. Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah that has suffered major setbacks in recent weeks, including the killing of it leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah started attacking Israeli army posts in October last year in solidarity with the militant Hamas group in Gaza. Since Sept. 23, Israel has intensified its airstrikes and forced the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese. Last week, Israel began a ground invasion of Lebanon, leading to clashes along the border with Hezbollah fighters.

CAIRO — The United Nations food agency said on Saturday that no food aid had entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1.

The World Food Program said that the primary border crossing into the war-ravaged area had been closed for about two weeks, warning that Israel’s ongoing ground operation has a disastrous impact on food security for thousands of Palestinians families there.

“The north is basically cut off and we’re not able to operate there,” said Antoine Renard, the WFP country director of Palestinian territories.

Concerns of a hunger crisis have risen in Gaza roughly a month after the U.N.’s independent investigator on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians.

Israel has denied such allegations and insisted that it has allowed food and other aid into Gaza in significant quantities.

“Israel has not halted the entry or coordination of humanitarian aid entering from its territory into the northern Gaza Strip. As evidence, humanitarian aid coordinated by COGAT and international organizations will continue to enter the northern Gaza Strip in the coming day as well,” COGAT, the Israeli military body overseeing aid distribution, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The WFP said its food distribution points, as well as kitchens and bakeries in northern Gaza, have been forced to shut down due to airstrikes, military ground operations and evacuation orders. It said that the only functioning bakery in North Gaza, supported by WFP, caught fire after being hit by an explosive munition.

The WFP said its last remaining food supplies in the north -- including canned food, wheat flour, high-energy biscuits, and nutrition supplements -- have been distributed to shelters, health facilities and kitchens in Gaza City and three shelters in the northern areas. It is unclear how long these limited food supplies will last, warning that the consequences for fleeing families will be dire if the escalation continues.

JERUSALEM — The European Union said Saturday it was deeply concerned about draft Israeli legislation that would ban the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel and likely scale back aid distribution across war-ravaged Gaza.

Earlier this week, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved a pair of bills this week that would ban UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory and end all contact between the government and the U.N. agency. The bill needs final approval from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

“If adopted, (the bill) would have disastrous consequences, preventing the U.N. agency from continuing to provide its services and protection to Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and Gaza,” the EU said in an online statement.

Israel has alleged that some of UNRWA’s thousands of staff members participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.

The U.N. has since fired more than a dozen staffers after internal investigations found they may have taken part in the attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel.

The U.N. agency has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to Palestinian civilians during the 12 month conflict in Gaza.

Concern about the Israeli bill was echoed by UNRWA’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, on Wednesday, who said all humanitarian operations in Gaza and the West Bank could “disintegrate” if the bill was implemented.

When UNRWA was created by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949, it was meant to provide health care, education and welfare services to about 700,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 conflict with Israel.

CAIRO — The Israeli military on Saturday renewed orders for Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and shelters amid a week of intense fighting with militants there.

Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli military, told people that the area includes parts of Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood and other parts in and around Jabaliya, the urban refugee camp.

In a post on X, Adraee asked people living there to head south to Muwasi, a packed area in southern Gaza designed by the military as a humanitarian zone.

Most of past week fighting centered in and around Jabaliya with Israeli war jets and artillery pounding the area. People there said they have been trapped inside their homes and shelters. The military also ordered the three main hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate patients and medical staff.